The beautiful weather of the last few days has propelled us into seed sowing mode. The majority of our seeds are for annuals; gap fillers and punctuation points to be...
We've been cutting down our deciduous grasses this week. In summer one corner of our border is a beautiful tangle of tall perennials such as rudbeckia, helenium, helianthus, and dahlias. ...
The recent addition of French doors at genus HQ has opened up a whole new vista for us to observe while eating our breakfast. Unfortunately the planting in this area...
We’ve been wanting to enlarge one of our flower beds for some time and with beautiful weather still on the cards we decided to start work. The rather rotten wooden...
With a week of high pressure giving us glorious sunny days we decided to get into the vegetable garden and sow some broad beans. Very hardy, and very tasty, broad...
It’s March tomorrow and it's getting busy out there in the garden. As you can see, Joff has been pruning the roses in the Genus garden. Here are our top 10...
The milder weather we’ve been having over the last few days has enabled us to get on with the work that was postponed by the previous week's deep freeze. With...
What a week! Freezing cold temperatures, ground frozen, and scatterings of snow. Plans that were previously made to sow seeds suddenly seemed laughable and a quick mental pivot was required...
Mulching. We’re at it again! It was only just before Christmas that we were talking about spreading compost on the flower borders. It’s something we’re passionate about. A decade of...
When we first moved into the cottage at Genus HQ it had a functional but extremely ugly concrete garage. It’s the first thing we see on our return home and...
Gardeners are an optimistic bunch, never put off by failures, always trying again, and always looking to the future. Small but barely noticeable signs at Genus HQ have made us...
As you read this, galanthomania is sweeping the country and keen snowdrop fans, or galanthophiles, are dropping to their knees to inspect the delicate petals of some of the rarer...
Every six months we renovate our mulched tree circles in the orchard at Genus HQ. Weeds are removed, the edges clipped with our trusty French Bahco shears, and a top...
Winter gardens concentrate the mind. It’s the detail that counts. Whether peering at the delicate formation of a snowdrops perianth, the frosted hairs on brittle seed heads, or the last...
Stepping out the back door of Genus HQ last week we were slapped in the face by wind and cold driving rain. As devotees of performance gardenwear we weren’t going to let...
A day in the fruit cage beckoned this week. The blackcurrants have responded well to a complete cut back and renovation that we gave them in late 2019. A wealth...
It’s that time of year again and the search for Christmas gifts at full throttle. Gardeners past enjoyed a now familiar set of innovative products bought as special gifts. During...
With the Genus borders planted up with tulips and wallflowers we were finally able to get on with mulching. This has been an annual operation since we moved here over ten years...
The first thing you learn when using ‘black’ plants in the garden is that they’re rarely black; dark reds, purples, and sometimes dark blues are usually the norm. Despite this,...
‘Hands up who likes blackfly’? No, we don’t either. They often appear suddenly in the garden and can cause several problems that need to be dealt with.The bean aphid Aphis...
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The Genus Garden - Musings From Joff, Our Head Gardener
